Cloud gaming, in which datacenter servers host multiple game application instances (e.g., multi-tenancy) while clients merely transmit user input and display output (e.g. output frames) from servers has emerged as an alternative to traditional client-side gaming. Cloud gaming offers several advantages as compared to client-side gaming because cloud gaming may reduce issues associated with client-side system configurations and platform compatibility, thereby alleviating a long-standing headache of traditional non-console gaming and mobile device gaming. Thus, one advantage of cloud gaming is to enable many different types of client devices, with varying hardware capabilities and running various operating systems, to participate in games hosted by the datacenter servers. A second advantage of cloud gaming is that upgrading datacenter servers (e.g., for better visual quality or more sophisticated game play) is typically easier than upgrading individual client-based hardware or software. A third advantage is that players can select from a vast library of games and instantly play any of them instead of being tied to a game offerings for a specific client device.
However, cloud gaming multi-tenancy raises several issues that are not encountered in traditional datacenter multi-tenancy. First, cloud gaming provides a graphics intensive workload. Graphics rendering capability may be based on the availability and capacity of graphics processing units (GPUs). Meanwhile, other system resources, such as disk space, system memory, and central processing units (CPUs), may be underutilized compared to traditional datacenters. Second, hosting multiple gaming sessions involves meeting continuous deadlines. Acceptable gaming interactivity typically requires continuous frame processing of at least 30 frames per second (fps) because players typically become dissatisfied when frame rates fall below 30 fps. Third, games may include graphical effects, such as anti-aliasing, texture details, shadows, etc., that produce higher quality graphics. Thus, one challenge with cloud multi-tenancy gaming is enabling datacenter servers to host multiple players while maintaining graphics quality.